


Five By Five

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen/Will, established relationship, pseudo-one sided; Will watches Magnus while she dresses for the day and muses on their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five By Five

Will’s pretty aware of ancient battle rituals, hard not to be when what used to be ancient turns out to just be in hiding half the time, and he can’t help but think that Magnus’s immaculate grooming is some modern version of liming her hair to scare off the Romans or painting herself up in woad like a Pict. She’d probably roll her eyes at either comparison but right now she’s too busy, seated at her vanity when the sky’s still dark and most (not all) of the sanctuary’s residents are still fast asleep. She likes to get up early. Will’s never really been one to sleep in but even he can’t beat Magnus awake.

He’d tried a couple times, when they first started…whatever the hell they had (he calls her his girlfriend, she calls him Will) but he could never manage to catch her asleep. Will’s actually pretty sure she doesn’t sleep but he guesses she has to sometimes since she never has dark circles and can outrun him nine times out of ten. She’s up now and a quick glance at the clock beside her (their?) bed shows it’s only five in the morning; Will sort of wants to go back to sleep for another two hours.

Sleep’s put on the back burner though in quiet moments like these. Magnus has approximately a million little teddies and gowns that she wears to bed for him but when she’s just gotten out of the bath in the morning, she wears a little terrycloth bathrobe that’s faded and worn in a few places. It’s decidedly un-Magnus but Will doesn’t like to call her on that; he likes it when she’s vulnerable. He personally thinks she’s more beautiful before she starts laying in the heavy makeup but he doesn’t really think it’s his place to say so; Helen Magnus is a fiercely independent woman.

She starts with some kind of cream, moisturizer is his best guess, and smoothes it over her face and neck in methodical little circles. It smells like lavender and honey and it’s comforting to him; the smell reminds him of when he was small and she came to his rescue and as weird as that is, considering he’s in his thirties now and shares a bed with the woman in question, he still finds it soothing. The nose has a long memory, even by Will’s standards.

That finished, she dusts powder on her face and starts lining her eyes, dark kohl highlighting the deep blue. Will likes that part, even if he doesn’t really care for the rest, because it makes him think of some Egyptian goddess or sculpture or something. He told Magnus that once and she’d laughed, curling her hand around his wrist and leaning in close to kiss him just behind his ear. They’d been en route to a staff meeting and Will had tried to make it quick, tried not to get them caught. They were still found out by Kate and Will couldn’t look her in the eye for weeks afterward.

There’s no hair supplies on the vanity today and Will grins when he realizes Magnus is just going to let it go naturally. He likes that better, when she’s fresh-scrubbed and her hair falls down her back in messy waves but she doesn’t seem to like it as much. She likes to iron it flat and line her eyes dark, paint her lips even darker and dress in black leather. Leather catches bullets better than silk, says she. Leather makes you look harsher than silk, says he. He’s never had a problem with differences of opinion.

She tugs the towel from her hair and it cascades down her back, dark curls stark against the white of the robe. Sometimes, Will gets to see her paint her toenails (always shell pink, always perfect) or put on her jewelry but by that point she’s usually onto him and trying to distract him from watching her morning rituals. It makes her uncomfortable, knowing he’s seen her vulnerable, and every time she mentions that Will’s heart breaks a little for her; he doesn’t think it’s such a bad thing to be vulnerable with the one you love.

She doesn’t love him. She cares about him, obviously, or she wouldn’t have asked him to bed with her. She’s attracted to him, has been since he started working for her. She doesn’t love him. She says she’s too old and too out of touch to fall in love but Will suspects she’s just scared, that she just hides behind the independence and the makeup and the leather so she doesn’t have to take her feelings out and examine them. He’s been examining feelings for half his life and it doesn’t scare him anymore but as much as he tries, she won’t.

He loves her in spite of it. He loves her because of it. He loves her more when she’s not perfect, when she’s irritable and her hair’s undone and her makeup’s smeared. He loves her more when she’s been treading water for eight hours trying to get away from a giant squid; he simply loves her, and there’s no beginning or end to the feeling. He wishes she understood that, accepted it for what it was, and returned it. He can’t force her to it, no matter how much he wants it.

She’s caught him now, like she does every morning, and crosses the room to kiss him before glossing her lips. She smells like lavender and honey and Will nuzzles her neck before she breaks the embrace, crossing to her closet to pick out the uniform of the day. He doesn’t stay to watch this part, doesn’t want to see Magnus put on her armor to become the esteemed doctor. He wants the memory of Helen to last just a little longer.

He only gets that between five and six every morning. Will figures that’s better than nothing.


End file.
